“While there is a lower class I am in it; while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free”
-Eugene V. Debs
down the hill they are still awake
loud drunken laughter
in the earliest hours of Monday
and tomorrow
over beers, barbecues, and football
Pullman will never once cross their minds
in the latest hours of Sunday
the sound of digital gunfire spills from a window across the street
and ricochets off of the houses and retaining walls
i am reminded of Haymarket Square
my great grandfather, thin and drowning in his blacklung coughs
the oil and grease fingerprint stains on my grandfather's teamster magazines
there aren't many parades anymore
just back to school sales
as we move from makers
to doers
and try to pretend
we are not your children
but our hands are as rough and cracked
our backs just as broken
as you know they are
we have forgotten the nobility of the dirtborn
the fragility of our position
and the extent of the power we could wield
we have become but impotent servants
of the landlords and their ilk
then wonder why our souls feel empty
tattered
and long ago sold
would this surprise you
to know the foremost phrase in the modern working class jargon
has become
"May I help you?"
would it surprise you
to see your home
to see the highland now?
the things they have done to dishonor your memory
does your sister's husband rest in peace
apart and unguarded
since they took Stiffy Green from his crypt
and placed him in the county museum?
they talk of ghosts enough here
of the woman in purple velvet
of the laughs and screams and blood in the 12th street woods
even of Stiffy Green's bark sounding out from the cemetery gates
but never of yours.
the worst is
south of town
the sprawling gulag they have built
in these parts they like to call their prisons "farms"
but they have more to do with reaping than sowing
this is where they murdered Mc.V
the killer they created
who outlived his usefulness
and turned rabidly upon his creator
while the innocent and unknowing
the unshielded and those used as shields
your people
died
where they murdered Garza
where they murdered Jones
can't you see?
we need you
to show us
again
the way
Terre Haute needs you
Bend needs you
Cleveland and Chicago need you
Lowell and Johnstown need you
Gary and Louisville need you
the unemployment lines get longer every day
and the cabinets get more bare
foreclosure and for sale signs crop up
evasive species sprouting exponentially
and we have fractured across the wrong lines
with neither the sense nor strength to call upon your spirit
